What Lies Beneath is a movie that works in spite of itself, which is more than you can say for most of Michelle Pfeiffer's recent films. Hitchcockian, but nowhere near as good as Hitchcock, too long but not painfully so, intermittently laughable - unintentionally, I believe - but not to the point where it becomes impossible to take it seriously, What Lies Beneath is sufficiently frightening that its virtues far outweigh its shortcomings. If you like movies about gorgeous nitwits who don't have the good sense to flee a house that is obviously haunted by a malignant entity, this is the film for you. Personally, I happen to love films of this genre.

Like The Sixth Sense, Stir of Echoes, Sleepy Hollow, The Haunting, The Haunting of Hill House and several other recent movies whose names are already forgotten, What Lies Beneath concerns an extremely unhappy dead person whose life has been prematurely terminated and who is now seeking what Americans routinely call "closure".

In movies of this genre, a dysfunctional teenager, or vicious mercenary, or conflicted psychologist, or innocent child, or hapless lunatic has died before having a chance to tidy up the loose ends of his or her life, and is now seeking vengeance, vindication, justice, love or the aforementioned "closure".

The amazing popularity of these motion pictures suggests that the general public desperately wants to believe that life has an underlying logic and that death is not meaningless or capricious. It is doubtful that this is what the general public believes in places like Rwanda, Serbia or the Sudan, but that need not concern us here.

As the film opens, Michelle Pfeiffer, a retired cellist with a history of emotional problems, and her husband Harrison Ford, a brilliant scientist, are saying goodbye to their college-bound daughter, who may or may not reappear later when things turn less idyllic. With lots of time on her hands, Pfeiffer starts snooping into the affairs of her new neighbours, who seem to be experiencing a bit of domestic turmoil.

This is the classic Hitchcockian gambit of introducing an interesting story that may be the linchpin of the plot, may be an intriguing subplot, may be a parallel story, or may have nothing to do with the principal thrust of the action, but is simply used as a diversionary tactic. Hitchcock used this trick in Rear Window, in Vertigo, in Family Plot and most famously in Psycho, and Robert Zemeckis is using it here.

Eventually, Pfeiffer's fears about her neighbours give way to problems closer to home. The door keeps opening and closing of its own accord. The dog starts behaving oddly. Lights flicker on and off. The personal computer begins to behave strangely. Little by little, Pfeiffer begins to suspect that the house is inhabited, on at least a part-time basis, by a ghost. And, with the passage of time, she comes to believe that the ghost is not very nice.

Ford, not entirely convincing in the role of a brilliant scientist, tries to humour his wife, who may or may not be completely bonkers. Though he is willing to believe that something odd is going in the house, he does not actually believe in the ghost because it never seems to be around when he is on the premises. Like Kevin Bacon in Stir of Echoes or the little boy in The Shining, Pfeiffer seems to be dealing with a ghost that only she can see.

Soon it becomes apparent that the ghost is real, that she has a score to settle with both Ford and Pfeiffer, and that she is not leaving until this issue has been resolved. Though it is never made clear exactly how extensive her powers are, beyond the normal disruption of appliances, she certainly doesn't seem like the sort of creature you want to be trifling with. Eventually, the Ford-Pfeiffers realise that the ghost resents the blissful relationship they share and will probably not be happy until they move out, die or both.

One thing that makes What Lies Beneath work so well are the light comic touches. Several of the encounters with the shadowy neighbours prove to be unexpectedly hilarious. Pfeiffer's attempt to contact her spectral visitor through the intercession of a Ouija board also leads to a few chuckles here and there.

And many of the people in the theatre where I saw What Lies Beneath laughed hysterically at the sight of a bare-chested Harrison Ford sitting up with his laptop in bed trying to solve one of the great mysteries of science. It should be noted that Ford has opted for the bare-chested look in his last three movies (he also doffs his T-shirt in Six Days Seven Nights and Random Hearts) and I for one wish he would stop. He is no longer a heart-throb, he is well past the point that anyone, male or female, would actually want to see his chest, and scientists don't do things like that anyway.

In any case, it's not his movie. It's Pfeiffer's. Like so many heroines of the past, Pfeiffer's character exudes a winsome fragility that could easily be mistaken for stupidity, and may, in fact, be stupidity. She doesn't pick up on things terribly quickly, she spends an awful lot of time wandering around dark, scary buildings, and she doesn't seem to have enough physical stamina to withstand the rigours of a battle royal with a resourceful, determined visitor from beyond the grave.

But unlike Heather, the idiot girl in The Blair Witch Project, Pfeiffer's character never really gets on your nerves. In a horror movie, the heroine has to be the kind of person who ignores the audience's frantic pleas not to go into that house alone; otherwise there wouldn't be any horror. And for a horror movie to really work, there has to be a big surprise at the end.